Andrew Richard Lukehart admitted hitting his girlfriend’s five-month-old daughter, Gabrielle Hanshaw. But he said he loved the baby and had no intention of killing it. He was 22 years old at the time.
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Florida has executed a death row inmate who murdered his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter. This crime occurred while he was on probation for severely beating an 8-month-old infant.
Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, June 2, for the 1996 murder of five-month-old Gabriel Hanshaw. Lukehart is the 15th inmate put to death in the United States this year and the eighth in Florida, far more than in any other state as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to sign a record number of death warrants in the Sunshine State.
According to the Associated Press, Lukehart told witnesses to the execution that he was “sorry.” “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” the Associated Press reported.
Lukehart was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. ET.
Lukehart’s case stands out in that he beat Gabriel to death while on probation for beating his ex-girlfriend’s daughter so severely that she fractured her skull, broke both legs, an arm and two ribs. He harmed the first girl in 1994, served just 10 months in county jail after pleading guilty, and killed Gabriel the following year on February 26, 1996.
“He killed my baby,” Gabriel’s mother, Misty Lou, tearfully told the Florida Times-Union, part of the USA TODAY Network, in 1997.
Here’s what you need to know about the death penalty and the case.
What was Andrew Richard Lukehart convicted of?
On February 26, 1996, 22-year-old Andrew Richard Lukehart was changing five-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw’s diaper when he apparently lost his temper and punched her five times in the head, fracturing her skull.
According to court records, Lukehart dumped Gabriel’s body in a local pond and made up a story to fool police. He told investigators that someone abducted Gabriel from his car after they stopped in front of a convenience store, records show.
Lukehart told police he saw the “kidnapper” fleeing in a blue Vaser and gave chase before getting into a traffic accident. But police soon became suspicious as Lukehart’s story kept changing. They launched an extensive search for Gabriel, mobilizing 50 officers, a police dog, a helicopter and a dive team, before announcing that Lukehart had led them to Gabriel’s body.
Lukehart later admitted to hitting the baby, but testified during the trial that he loved Gabrielle and did not intend to kill her.
“If only she hadn’t soiled (the diaper),” the defendant said at trial, according to archived news reports.
Two years before killing Gabriel, Lukehart pleaded guilty to beating his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, an 8-month-old girl named Jillian. In the case, the man initially told police that the girl had drowned in the bathtub before resuscitating her and that he had injured his head when he fell while holding her, according to an archived article published in the Times Union.
Gillian’s grandmother told the paper that she was angry that Lukehart was sentenced to 10 months in prison for hurting her granddaughter and was constantly afraid that another child would be at risk. “I was just waiting to hear something else,” she told the Times Union in 1996.
E. McCray Mattis, the chief assistant state’s attorney at the time, told the paper there were several reasons why prosecutors in Gillian’s case allowed Lukehart to receive a lighter sentence under the plea deal. Lukehart had no criminal history, prosecutors did not believe he caused all of the girl’s injuries (her mother was charged with negligence), and Florida prisons at the time were so overcrowded that inmates typically served less than a third of their sentences. Mathis told the paper that inmates at the county jail will likely serve their entire sentences.
“They did absolutely everything that was permissible under the circumstances to get a meaningful sentence,” he said of the prosecutors in Gillian’s case. “When you look at these lawsuits, it never feels like enough is enough. They did their best.”
Andrew Richard Lukehart fought against the death penalty
Lukehart had objected to the death penalty, arguing that Florida’s lethal injection law constituted cruel and unusual punishment for him, who suffers from kidney disease.
“There is a significant and imminent risk that executing Lukehart under these procedures would very likely inflict unnecessary pain and suffering,” his lawyers told the Florida Supreme Court.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office rejected those claims.
“The simple truth is that Lukehart has lived in debt for decades while his victims waited for the justice they were constitutionally entitled to,” the attorney general’s office said in a filing with the Florida Supreme Court. “Lukehart has no more time to borrow.”
The Florida Supreme Court last week rejected Lukehart’s request for probation. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected his last pending appeal.
When is the next execution?
The next execution in the United States will be that of Jeffrey Lee on June 11th in Alabama. Alabama plans to execute Lee under a relatively new nitrogen gas law for the 1998 shooting death of a pawn shop owner and his employee.
Alabama made history in January 2024 by carrying out the first nitrogen gas execution in the United States. Since then, the state has used the method on six other prisoners, despite objections about the potential for suffering and claims from some in the Jewish community that it reminded them of Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.
Louisiana became the second state to use this method when it executed Jesse Hoffman in March 2025.
In an opinion temporarily blocking Hoffman’s execution, Louisiana Chief District Judge Shelley Dick wrote that witness testimony about some executions in Alabama included “suffering, including several minutes of conscious fear, trembling, gasping, and other evidence of pain.” Witnesses saw the inmates “struggling” under their restraints, “convulsing and shaking violently for four minutes,” writhing, spitting and “losing consciousness and struggling for life,” she wrote.
A federal judge in Alabama ruled last week that while the method may be painless, it does not violate inmates’ constitutional rights. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit challenging the method used by Lee, who is set to become the eighth inmate to be executed by lethal gas in the United States.
“While Judge Lee establishes that death from nitrogen hypoxia involves some degree of suffering, he fails to demonstrate that the protocol is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” wrote U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks.
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering capital punishment, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow @amandaleeusat on X.
